


Razor's Edge

by levitatethis



Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: Community: hardtime100, Gen, M/M, Prompt Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-19
Updated: 2011-05-19
Packaged: 2017-10-19 17:44:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levitatethis/pseuds/levitatethis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For O'Reily, Keller and Said everything's a test -- of will, of cunning, of belief, of heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Razor's Edge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [comasisters](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=comasisters).



> written for hardtime100 challenge #60: Heart  
> This is dedicated to comasisters for her birthday.

**  
********** ********** ********** ********** ************

  
Ryan plays the odds.

He tilts them in his favour, shades the edges, massages the corners, and reshapes them into something enticing and palatable. But there’s always a risk and he’s gambler enough to push (too) hard and (too) far.

One thing has always called his bluff time and time again. Saved for the deserving few it has spit the odds back in his face and challenged him to put his money where his mouth is.

Love.

The unquantifiable factor.

It has clutched his heart in a vice grip and survival dictated he reign it in, subjugate it to his will. He’s done crazy things for it, made blood drenched declarations while winking flirtatiously at the consequences always trying to catch up, but too flatfooted to make any ground.

Gloria’s kind eyes (even when they’re sad—and that’s only because she’s fighting what they both know is inevitable, what she refuses to open herself up to) heat a want so intense he’s mesmerized, throwing his game on pause. A tug of a smile on Cyril’s face reminds Ryan of when they were a tag teaming duo, running the streets, winner take all. They are his game changers, shrugging off attempts at too cool confidence in dealing a better hand.

Gloria can play blind all she wants. Ryan knows what his heart wants and there sure as hell ain’t anything going to get in the way. Yet in the quiet of his pod, when the sound of his brother deep in sleep is the only noise, Ryan considers the ramifications of unconditional love. For Cyril he would do anything but the trade off is knowing Cyril would do anything for him.

Isn’t that in itself conditional? Tit for tat?

He doesn’t want to think of himself as selfish, not when it comes to Cyril and the suffocating guilt Ryan feels for having to be his brother’s keeper. His conscience (or what’s left of it) rhetorically asks, _‘you’re going to look out for him,’_ and of course he is, but it’s not only because he loves him. He _owes_ Cyril. It’s a debt Ryan will never fully repay.

The saying is right. You do hurt the ones you love. He’s the shining example, the morality tale gone awry, because even knowing what he does—hating it for those split seconds when he feels the impact of all the shit he’s done—he’d probably do it all over again.

As long as it all leans in his favour consequences remain surmountable obstacles. He can play with those numbers and fool others. Fool himself. In a game of chance he’s a puppet master, feelings be damned.

It’s all about the odds.

  
 ************ ********** ********** ********** ************

  
 _Sure, most people survive it, but the heart is never quite the same. There’s always a scar…_

 **  
********** ********** ********** ********** ************

  
Chris doesn’t put much weight in regrets.

He can’t change the past, but he can make the present as bearable as possible. And if he’s lucky he can buy some time into the not-so-foreseeable future. That isn’t to say he doesn’t ponder his lot in life. Stuck in the four walls of Oz provides plenty of time (too much actually) to reflect—on a misspent (though undeniably fun when it wasn’t outright sucking) path; bad company in the first ring of Hell (Lardner); marriages meant to save his soul (but only so long as the fucking was good, which was never long enough); and a whole slew of bad choices when he was in the wrong place at the wrong time (or was it the right place at the wrong time?).

No honour amongst thieves? No kidding. It’s how he ended up naked in the hole, tossed aside yet again while learned lessons rolled their eyes at him from the shadows, as if to say, _‘Did you really think this would be any different?’_

He’s pissed at himself for letting his guard down and willing himself to believe he could be…happy…He’s humiliated for showing such weakness, actually _believing_ Toby—no, _Beecher_ , no more, no less, no fucking endearments to cloud judgment, Beecher sounds justifiably cold rolling off his tongue and that will have to do better than a shank for now—could love him, all of him; the faults and flaws, the blood soaked sin.

He hates Beecher.

He hates him because he loved him so much, loved him in the face of taunting memories—his mother who whispered desperate kindnesses but never more than for the boyfriend of the day; the stepfathers who beat him black and blue until he could fight back and then it was mocking voices chasing him as he ran out the door (once and for all); the wives who loved his cock more than his personality (not that he could blame them since that was the point, save for Bonnie who really did care, but still fell short); Vern laying out the rules for a seventeen year old who already knew the game and played the required part; and now the final straw, Beecher saying, _‘I love you,’_ in one ear while hurling accusations of murder in the other.

There’s no going back.

The curtain’s been drawn and the great wizard is a small man with a God complex and endless funds. Chris is free of saccharine entanglements that once served only as a distraction. He’s reeling. It’s Hell on earth and he’s looking to take casualties and burn what’s left to the ground. Forgiveness is a bullshit word and foreign sentiment. Anger boils within his veins and seers beneath the skin.

Chris hates Beecher for tricking him into believing that he was more than a great fuck, more than grunting conversation lacking substance, more than a convenient ally. For a moment in his fucking cesspool of a life, Chris felt he mattered.

He hates that Beecher blew up protective walls carefully built on instinct that took years to forge into place.

Most of all, however, Chris hates himself.

Deep down in places he doesn’t want to think about or let Sister Pete poke at he wouldn’t take back any of it. For the first and only time the thrill of the chase took second place to the final destination.

In the end Chris is the idiot who fell in love.

 **  
********** ********** ********** ********** ************

  
 _…which is meant, I guess, to remind you that even for a little while, someone made your heart beat faster._

  
 ************ ********** ********** ********** ************

  
Said’s whole life has been a search for Truth.

He has sought it in Allah’s guidance, giving himself over to the knowledge that failures and missteps are as much a part of the journey as the accomplishments that draw calm around him like a warm blanket. Trials and tribulations test his will, but knowing it is for absolute good provides the peace of mind this place tries to steal away from everyone.

He basks in the firm belief he is walking a righteous path, an honourable one, one that all can respect.

He is a man of his word.

But he has been tested.

He has been dragged into the darkness and forced to see in himself the same weakness that mired others. Hypocrisy breathes heavily against his neck and he vows not to repeat past mistakes, yet is willing to grade himself on a curve. For all his pronouncements, the stoic mask of collected cool fit tightly into place, he has stumbled as much as stood tall.

A white ex. A white crush. There’s having a type and then there’s…is that why a part of him opened so easily to Beecher, the platonic version of (pseudo) past romances gone astray. It is a fallibility, a murmur in an otherwise strong heartbeat. He is human, after all, the universe reminds him painfully, cruelly at times.

He is at Allah’s mercy.

He is self-sacrifice and self-serving and in the balancing scales of life it is paramount he believes the grace of God will guide him, right the straying, crooked wrongs, and wash away his sins, wiping the slate clean.

Reason. Faith. He exists between both, seeking the most authentic life he can, the most just, come what may. He’s made his peace with the unknown.

So he faces east and bows in reverence, humbling himself before Allah.

  
 ************ ********** ********** ********** ************

 _  
And that’s a scar you can live with, proudly, all the days of your life._   


  



End file.
